Black and Latina mothers have faced intensified material hardship during the pandemic due to institutional racism and sexism. LIFT describes the lessons it learned through working with parents to improve their personal well-being, increase their social connections, and strengthen them financially through coaching and direct financial assistance.
This paper outlines common challenges agencies face while administering benefits and gives examples of how technology can streamline the process. It also discusses the importance of user-centered design, and the necessity of utilizing technology as part of a holistic strategy to implement public benefits.
A primer by New America for government entities thinking about embracing open-source solutions. This report is based on interviews with experts in the field, the organization’s work on piloting open source projects with partners around the world, and a review of nearly 50 reports, documents, and resources on the creation and usage of open source software.
Technology that automates different processes can save time for caseworkers and constituents, but it can also significantly reduce the transparency of government operations. This paper describes how Pennsylvania advocates addressed the low rate of automated Medicaid renewals.
While CARES Act benefits themselves have been critical to households, their design and implementation have led to more uncertainty and volatility for lower-income households. This report discusses the financial resilience strategies families used to manage gaps before benefits arrived, in addition to providing recommendations for how benefits can be better designed in the future to fit the financial lives of lower-income households.
Technologists are crucial to help governments, social service providers, and advocacy groups use technology to confront and address the challenges and inequities that inevitably arise from technological change. However, there are not enough technologists working or interested in joining public interest fields to meet growing demand. This report identifies opportunities to build the field of public interest technology, and ways that philanthropy and other stakeholders can invest to best support such efforts.
Report by the Aspen Institute discussing Benefits21, a multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted initiative to integrate and modernize benefits systems. This paper provides an overview of Benefits21, along with a discussion of the shortcomings of current public and private benefit systems.
New America spoke to to the people at the frontlines of the pandemic—professional caregivers, family caregivers, parents, and essential workers—to understand the policy interventions people need most. This report discusses ideas for policymakers, private sector leaders, and community innovators to use in pursuit of work-family justice and equity across race, gender, and class.
This report describes key elements of the American Rescue Plan Act and how it would reduce the projected poverty rate for 2021. Various projections regarding the effects of the policy are described in this report.
The New Practice Lab interviewed Black and Latinx workers that lost their job or income due to COVID-19 and their experience navigating UI. They synthesized their findings in this report, discussing how compounding inequities that exist in the unemployment insurance system make it less accessible for workers of color.
As part of its ongoing commitment to streamline access to benefits by Californians in need of assistance, the California Department of Social Services is exploring electronic options to help simplify and modernize the processes for obtaining required verifications for CalFresh and CalWORKs eligibility. This report lays out a set of options and opportunities for consideration, as well as a list of key verification considerations that would benefit both clients and staff.
About 12 million Americans risk missing out on stimulus payments provided through the CARES Act. State outreach efforts are critical to connect people to the $1,200 stimulus payments, and the CBPP lists various resources to assist in state outreach efforts on this webpage.
